After appearing in six Ratchet & Clank games, Clank has finally been granted star billing. But, evidently aware of his modest innate talents and less than warlike demeanour, High Impact Games has recast him as a Bond-style agent, with stealth-based play and an inventory that favours gadgets over guns.

To be faithful to the series’ uproarious nature, however, stealth is largely optional – Clank generally has enough firepower to fight back when he’s found – and it’s a form that emphasises action: enemies are despatched with a quick QTE if they’re crept up upon from behind and infrared detectors can be deactivated with a squirt from his Blackout Pen. Annoyingly, however, some sections will rather arbitrarily and inconsistently impose game over if he’s discovered.

High Impact is also aware that Clank can’t quite carry a whole game by himself, so series stalwarts Ratchet and Captain Qwark, as well as the Gadgebots, embellish the experience. Ratchet, who spends the game locked up in a prison for a crime he hasn’t committed, has arena combat challenges (yes, there’s a shower level), a release valve for players hankering after the series’ trademark weaponised mayhem.

Qwark’s sections vary in quality and, in the main nod to comedy, are embodiments of his embellished tales of derring-do to his biographer, including a fight with a space dragon and a performance of an opera in which he jumps on butterflies to disprove chaos theory.

The excellent Gadgebot levels, meanwhile, are puzzle-based and reminiscent of Zelda dungeons in the way the three bots must unlock the exit to each room to progress. On top of that there are vehicle sections, a fantastically pretty on-rails shoot ’em up and, probably the weakest inclusion, Clank’s limp rhythm action sequences.

The result is restless and, in the context of Clank’s overall story, incoherent. But it’s also vibrantly diverse and, though it continually threatens to lose the thread of what makes Ratchet & Clank games distinct, it always manages to regain focus.

Verdict: 7/10